Field of view

Sometimes, you just need to look at things a little differently. True innovation is hard to come by in videogames, but often, if you squint a bit, you can at least detect the outline of it. Sure, it’s the buttons we press and the keys we tap that most define the way we interact with a game. But the camera can be every bit as important, as this month’s Play crop proves.

Five-and-a-half years after its announcement, Below (p104) finally arrives this month, and on paper it sounds like any number of punishing survival-exploration games that have released during its protracted development. Yet Capy’s latest feels markedly different thanks to its tilt-shift presentation and the fact that the camera sits so high in the sky. Announced as an Xbox game, it’s available on PC too, and is a very different game depending on the distance you play it from. On the sofa, you’re in thrall to the scale of the thing; at your desk, it’s a game to be peered into, pored over and picked apart.

Elsewhere, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes (p114) pulls a similar trick. While screenshots and trailers might suggest this is a very different game to Travis Touchdown’s two Wii-era action games, the reality is rather different. Yes, our hero has been sucked into a mythical unreleased console, and must fight his way through a series of different game styles. Yet the core of the game is the same hack-andslash energy-sword combat as before. It’s just that now you view it from the side, or above, the camera zoomed in tight or pulled up to cloud level.

This is not to say that these games use camera tricks to mask their lack of ambition; merely that perspective can make more difference than you might think. And in Ace

Combat 7’ s (p112) case, it might even turn your stomach – indeed, its VR mode may have you pining for simpler times.